TRAINING ARTISTIC
REFLEXIVITY IN VISUAL
ARTISTS
JENNIFER WIGMORE
JENNIFER
WIGMORE
MF
A
2
01
6
TRAINING ARTISTIC REFLEXIVITY IN VISUAL ARTISTS
How is the reflexive impulse recognized, valued and taught to the visual artist? Reflexivity is the artistic response to the idea or impulse from the brain. Training reflexivity as a tool is not about training the impulse, but about training the reflexive response to impulse. Acting pedagogy, through improvisation and repetition improves the reflexive response. Using actor-training methods that I have adapted into gestural drawing exercises, visual artists can practice responding reflexively in collaboration with others. Learning and artistry are social processes; they require embodied engagement with others to teach reflexivity and artistic individuality. This research contributes new interdisciplinary language and innovative techniques to visual artist training and identifies artistic reflexivity as a trainable part of a developing artistic process.
TRAINING ARTISTIC REFLEXIVITY IN
VISUAL ARTISTS
BY
JENNIFER WIGMORE
A thesis exhibition presented to OCAD University in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Fine Art
in
Interdisciplinary Masters of Art and Design APRIL 9 – 16TH, 2016
STUDENT GALLERY, 52 MCCAUL STREET TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA.
JENNIFER WIGMORE 2016
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TRAINING ARTISTIC REFLEXIVITY IN VISUAL ARTISTS. Copyright by Jennifer Wigmore. MFA Thesis Paper, INTERDISCIPLINARY MASTERS OF ART AND DESIGN, OCAD University, 100 McCaul St. W. Toronto, Ontario. M5T 1W1
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I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners.
I authorize OCAD University to lend this thesis to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research.
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ABSTRACT
Training Artistic Reflexivity in Visual Artists Jennifer Wigmore
MFA, IAMD
OCAD University, 2016
TRAINING ARTISTIC REFLEXIVITY IN VISUAL ARTISTS
How is the reflexive impulse recognized, valued and taught to the visual artist? Reflexivity is the artistic response to the idea or impulse from the brain. Training reflexivity as a tool is not about training the impulse, but about training the reflexive response to impulse. Acting pedagogy, through improvisation and repetition improves the reflexive response. Using actor-training methods that I have adapted into gestural drawing exercises, visual artists can practice responding reflexively in collaboration with others. Learning and artistry are social processes; they require embodied engagement with others to teach reflexivity and artistic individuality. This research contributes new interdisciplinary language and innovative techniques to visual artist training and identifies artistic reflexivity as a trainable part of a developing artistic process.
KEY WORDS:
Reflexivity, collaboration, visual art education, creativity, impulse, intuition, interdisciplinary, a/r/tography, play, pedagogy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research project focuses on the importance of collaboration and I certainly couldn’t have done this without my many collaborators. Thank you to all of you and my humble apology to those that I forgot.
• My Principal advisor, Professor Nicole Collins for your stewardship and gentle guidance through it all.
• Dean Vladimir Spicanovic, my secondary advisor, for your
unwavering support and the many passion filled conversations in your office over the years.
• Saskia van Kampen, my internal advisor, for your infectious passion for teaching.
• John Armstrong, my external advisor for your sage, kind and insightful comments.
• The Social Science and Humanities Research Council for their generous funding of this research.
• The OCAD U Student Gallery for hosting my exhibition.
• OCAD U faculty for their support; Martha Ladly, David Clarkson, J.J. Lee, John Scott & Laura Millard.
• OCAD U staff; Carol Roderick, James Morrow, Darryl Bank, Brian Desrosiers-Tam and Alice Brummel for always being available and having an answer.
• The interim Graduate Program Director; Paulette Phillips, for your leadership and support in my final year.
• To Samson Kong the designer of this document and the exercise guide.
• To all the faculty at OCAD U who let me come into their classes and experiment; James Olley, Amy Swartz, Pam Patterson, David Griffin, Luke Siemens, Natalie Waldburger, Nicole Collins and Echo Railton.
• The incredible students at OCAD U who bravely tried my exercises, who laughed and were so honest. You made this project possible.
• To the artists who allowed me into their lives and practice; John Kissick, Erin Loree, Andzej Tarasiuk, Diane Pugen and Rebecca Northan.
• Jessica Wyman for her support throughout my OCAD U journey, but specifically for helping me craft this thesis document.
• Spencer Harrison for your belief in me and your guidance in building my circus tent.
• Master acting teacher Perry Schneiderman for your support and inspiration.
• Dr. Janet Storch and Dr. Julia Creet for their incredible help with my REB application.
• To my IAMD cohort for their friendship, support and insight. This research was refined through working with you all. I’ll miss you.
• My friends and family for all their encouragement and love throughout this adventure.
• My friend and colleague, Ada Slaight Contemporary Painting and Print Media Chair, Natalie Waldburger, whose idea it was for me to go back to school, I could never have done this without your support and guidance through the last four years.
• My beautiful patient children, Lucas and Daisy, thank you for your love and understanding about my time away from you.
• Finally, to my incredible husband, David Storch, who always pushed me to focus on school and gave me such freedom to do so. Thank you for your late night editing and your unwavering enthusiasm for every crazy thing I brought home. I love you.
Lucas and Daisy
Ron & Jo Wigmore
and
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures & Images
INTRODUCTION
Experiment One
INTUITION
1.1: The Artist’s Creative Process: Breaking Myths 1.2 : Cognitive Creativity
Experiment Two
1.3 : Defining Artistic Reflexivity 1.4 : Play: It’s a Serious Business
Experiment Three
SKILLS
2.1: Acting Pedagogy Trains Artistic Reflexivity 2.2: How Collaboration Builds Artistic Reflexivity
Experiment Four
2.3: It’s not all in the Head! - Connecting Visual Artists to their Bodies 2.4: Learning to Fail Forward
Experiment Five
THE CIRCLE OF ENGAGEMENT
3.1: My Interdisciplinary Life as an A/r/tographer
Experiment Six
3.2: The Exercises
3.3: Entanglements: An Embodied Reflexive Dialogue with Material
CONCLUSION
Glossary of Terms
Bibliography
APPENDICES
Training Artistic Reflexivity: Collaborative Drawing Exercises for Visual Artists
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22 25 29 30 33 3839
39 45 47 5766
72 76 826
6 10 12 13 17 21LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Plan to be a Professional Artist?, Design, Samson Kong, 2016.
Figure 2. Is Collaboration Helpful to Your Practice?, Design, Samson Kong, 2016.
Figure 3. Is it Important for Artists to be Connected to their Bodies?, Design, Samson Kong, 2016
Figure 4. How do Artists Learn about Risk and Failure?, Design, Samson Kong, 2016.
Figure 5. Perfomative Circle of Experiential Engagement, Design, Samson Kong, 2016.
Figure 6. Exit Survey Results, Design Samson Kong, 2016. Figure 7. Have you ever encountered these exercises before?
Design Samson Kong, 2016.
Figure 8. What does art school teach you?, Design Samson Kong, 2016.
Figure 9. Would it be helpful to do more of these exercises?, Design Samson Kong, 2016.
Figure 10. Did you feel a difference doing the exercises more than once?, Design Samson Kong, 2016.
8 26 32 35 42 50 51 53 67 68
LIST OF IMAGES
Cover Image. Paint Net detail, acrylic paint, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 0. Small Bubble sculpture, plaster, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore Image 00. Bubble sculpture, resin, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore Image 1. Apple-pear Casing, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 2. Plaster Cast Apple-pear casing, 2014. Jennifer Wigmore Image 3. Plaster pouring in bubble wrap, 2014. Jennifer Wigmore Image 4. Bubble Wrap Sculptures, plaster, resin, concrete, 2015.
Jennifer Wigmore
Image 5. Pool noodle molds paint process, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 6. Paint Noodle, mis-tint house paint, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 7. Paint Knot, mis-tint house paint, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore Image 8. Ice-cream lids from Puzzle box, 2016, Jennifer Wigmore. Image 9. Poured paint skins from ice-cream lids, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 10. Dollar Hide, mis-tint house paint, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore Image 11. Paint nest process, mis-tint house paint, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 12. Paint Nest mis-tint house paint, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore Image 13. Paint Nest white, acrylic paint, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore Image 14 Embody, wood, acrylic paint, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore Image 15. Paint Pods, Acrylic Paint skins, plastic, 2014. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 16. Poured paint process, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore Image 17. Hide 2, Topology of Tailings Series, acrylic paint, plastic,
2015. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 18. Body Puppet Drawing exercise with students, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 19. Yes…And? Drawing exercise with students, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 20. Paint yarn process, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore Image 21. Paint yarn spool, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 22. Crochet Paint yarn chain, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore Image 23. Paint Net process, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
xiii xiv 5 5 12 12 21 21 21 29 29 29 38 38 38 43 45 45 46 47 48 58 58 58 59
Image 24. Paint Net, (installed) acrylic paint, medium, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 25. Yes…And? Performance Drawing, Reflex Exhibition, April 9th, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 26. Finished Yes...And? Drawing at Reflex exhibition, April 9th, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore.
Image 27. Reflex Exhibition, Installation image, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 28. Butter-Scotch Ripple, mis-tint house paint, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 29. Paint Tongue, reclaimed acrylic paint, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 30. Paint Carpet, mis-tint house paint, 2016. Jennifer Wigmore
Image 31. Paint Scab, acrylic paint, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore Image 32. Bubble Sculpture, plaster, 2015. Jennifer Wigmore
59 61 61 62 64 64 65 71 81
INTRODUCTION
I wasn’t the best or brightest student. Being held back in grade three was my first fall through a series of cracks in the education system. It destroyed my confidence in my ability to learn. A reading disability undiagnosed until I was in my late twenties was partly to blame. Little was expected of me so I was never pushed to achieve much. Eventually I dropped out of high school.
My safe haven was always the arts; I could always find myself there. My father was a theatre director, and I spent countless hours in the theatre with him as he created his shows. The actors, musicians and technicians working with him became my role models and my teachers. My activities in visual arts, music and drama were how I learned about the world, so it’s not surprising that I became an artist. Since completing my acting training in 1992 I have never been anything else. I’ve had a career as a multi disciplinary artist, an actor on stage and screen, a singer and a visual artist. I’ve built theatre companies and visual art collectives. After many years as a professional artist I extended my love of being an artist into a love of teaching artists. Teaching my first acting class in 2004, I made a connection to a love of artistry that extended beyond myself. Being a teacher gave me a brand new vision of a what it was to be a student, which was very different from the student I had been. Through my students I understood what it takes to be a good teacher. I realized that my challenging experiences in the education system hadn’t stopped me from learning, I had just chosen different teachers. This realization made me want to help younger artists feel valued and supported in their choice to be an artist. I have been teaching ever since.
Soon after I started teaching, my artistic focus changed to the visual arts. I wanted to expand my education, so with trepidation I walked into the Toronto School of Art (TSA). Within weeks I was enrolled full time, spending the next two years learning skills to make me a better visual artist. TSA ignited in me a love not just of making art, but of learning about it. I had become the student my students had taught me to be. I established a visual art practice which quickly
grew. Before long I wanted more education and my new confidence as a student propelled me to obtain my undergraduate degree at the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD U).
At OCAD U I realized that being a painter was not so different from being an actor. I was still the same artist I was just using different tools. I realized that I was able to transition so quickly from acting to painting because my training and experience as an actor had given me skills at taking risks and saying yes to my ideas. Working in my studio during my undergrad, I wondered how visual artists were taught to take risks. This led me to my first research questions: How is the reflexive impulse recognized, valued and taught to visual artists? How can visual art educators enhance and develop artistic intuition? These questions propelled my masters’ research and led me to evolve the concept of artistic reflexivity.
Actors need to be very flexible, able to respond readily to direction, the text and to each other. Great value is placed on training actors to respond reflexively to their impulses. It is the single most important skill for an actor to develop, because training the reflexive response teaches an actor to say yes. Could the tools I use to train actors be applied to the training of visual artists? Could such tools teach the visual artist to say yes? The aim of this research inquiry is to
introduce curriculum designed for actors to visual artist’s, and to use collaboration and repetition as a method to engage their reflexivity.
In chapter 1, Creativity, I address the way cultural myths and perceptions of creativity, talent, and play influence artists and the way they are trained. As well, I define my concept of Artistic Reflexivity and argue that it is integral to artistic identity in how artists turn their ideas into art.
In chapter 2, Skills, I outline how acting pedagogy is designed to develop artistic reflexivity and how collaboration and repetition promote the reflexive response. Collaboration teaches essential skills that are very difficult to develop in isolation. I also talk about the body’s role in developing artistic reflexivity and muscle memory.
Chapter 3, The Circle of Engagement, introduces my methodological framework and what Jungnickle and Hjorth (143) would call
my “interdisciplinary entanglements”. As this MFA program is interdisciplinary, I use a/r/tography as my methodology to weave together all facets of my life and practice, asserting that they are embodied and intertwined. My artwork is a product of this entanglement, the manifestation of engagement with material as a collaborative partner. My artistic experiments are distributed throughout this thesis document because, like the rhizome, they grew from and branched off my research and teaching. My exhibition artwork concludes this chapter and represents the culmination of my reflexive dialogue with material, and the hindsight derived from this project.
Chapter 3 also includes discussion of the workshops and the exercises that I created to teach artistic reflexivity to students at OCAD University. Throughout this thesis, I refer to surveys filled out by students before and after their experience of my workshops. Their voice in this thesis is a significant component of the findings of this research and make a direct contribution to my artistic practice. The voice of the student is of fundamental value to the development of this pedagogy.
In my paper I did not venture into comparisons to other artists, but I would be remiss if I did not mention some of the artists who I have discovered along this journey. Firstly, the influence of Lynda Benglis is clear. In the 1970’s she pushed the limits of material to new heights. She was fearless and also provoked the notion of what painting is. Louise Bourgeois with her hanging sculptures evoking the feminist body, my black Paint Net could be an homage to her. Eva Hesse and her innovative exploration of materiality through minimalist sculpture. Jackson Pollock and his action painting that accepts the unknown and the unpredictable as part of the process has long been influential to my artistic practice. His immersion into the moment of creation and the use of his body in a dance of action/reaction was the genesis of the concept of artistic reflexivity. 1970’s American post modernist, neo-geo painter Steve Parrino with his folded and twisted paintings and Italian painter Alberto Burri, both used unconventional materials and exploratory techniques to
create imageless sculptural paintings. All of these artists as well as the artists in my cohort have become part of the circle of influence and inspiration to my work and research.
As an artist first, I want my thesis document to reflect they way I think, teach and make art. This is why I chose the Bespoke format, which allows me to present these thoughts in a more informal manner. I have also created a separate guide called Training Artistic
Reflexivity: Collaborative Drawing Exercises for Visual Artists, describing
the exercises I created as part of this project. The guide is attached as an appendix to this document. I hope this guide will be useful to educators who would like to incorporate more reflexivity training in their curriculum.
OCAD University has been my artistic home for the last four years. The depth and breadth of my experience and knowledge have expanded exponentially under its roof. While at times I may be critical of OCAD U, it is because I care deeply for its future and see limitless possibilities of what it can achieve. It is my hope that opening a dialogue about how we train artists will contribute to advancements in teaching practices for the betterment of future artists.
Experiment One
Asian Apple-Pear Casing Sculpture
The origin of my graduate thesis work was a single moment of wonder. I held in my hands the netted foam casing from an Asian apple-pear, strange and squishy, moldable and stretchy (image 1). The casing seemed both odd and beautiful. Could I pour something into it? Could I use it as a mold? These were unusual thoughts for me as a painter. My training as an actor pushed me beyond mere playfulness to ask the most creative of all questions: What if? What if?’ prodded my imagination and provoked my curiosity, creating puzzles that I wanted to solve.
In my initial experiments I poured plaster into the casings. The casings proved to be excellent receptacles for the plaster, coming away easily when it was dry. I experimented with the consistency of the plaster, making it firm enough that it wouldn’t leak out of the holes. In order to create round forms, I held the mold till it had dried enough to keep its shape. Then I put the mold in a yogurt container and use crossed chopsticks sticks to keep it from collapsing.
The finished sculpture is mysterious. Reminiscent of washed ashore dead coral life. You would never guess how it was made.
Image 1, Asian Apple-pear casings, 2016
Image 2, Plaster cast of Asian apple-pear casing, 2014
Intuition
1.1 - THE ARTIST’S CREATIVE PROCESS: BREAKING MYTHS
There is no consensus on what creativity actually is - no tidy operational definition that would enable a line to be drawn objectively between a good idea/solution and a ‘creative’ one, or between a creative person and the rest of us.
- Susan Greenfield, ID: The Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century, 113.
Talent is the yardstick the world uses to measure genius. Without talent, it is believed, it is impossible to be an artist. But there is no way to get talent, to buy it or to make it. As the old adage goes; you either have it or you don’t. Creativity has been mixed into the same mysterious pool as talent, making creativity itself seem unattainable to those without talent.
Martin Ryan (1), in his MDes thesis at OCAD University, The Social
Construction of the “Non-Creative” Identity, analyzes what self-described
non-creative people think about people who identify as creative. “Creativity Culture”1 and the stereotypical assumptions about who is
creative and who is not, have deterred “non-creatives” from tapping into their creative potential (Ryan, 1). “Creativity has remained an ill-defined, elusive subject matter that more often breeds confusion and conflict than it does productive clarity” (53). Artists are not isolated from these cultural stereotypes, so it is reasonable to assume that they are influenced by the same pervasive cultural myths.
To qualify as a “creative person,” you must identify as an artist above all other professional identities, your work must consistently make a socially recognized impact on the world or your professional domain, and in doing so you must think far “outside of the box” and produce ideas from nothing, that have never been conceived of before. (86)
1 “By conceptualizing the sum of a society’s creative and “non-creative” identities, we arrive at an
ideologically neutral and fundamentally whole view of what can be described as a society’s “Creativity Culture”” (Ryan, 54)
This societal myth about what creative people are and what they do, not only prevents self identified non-creatives from exploring their creativity, but puts incredible pressure on those who do. “The fact that artists are still so creative and productive speaks eloquently of their determination to create in spite of the odds against them” (Task Force, 8).
These kinds of mythologies can damage the budding confidence of emerging artists, by putting undue pressure on them to assign tremendous value to their output. How can visual art pedagogy circumvent these stereotypes and cultural generalities if “product-driven relationships serve to create significant distance between creativity and the individual?” (Ryan, 105).
How do we promote the growth of artistic individuality and creative identity in a culture that places such value on product? In her book
ID: The Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century, Susan Greenfield (34)
suggests that we foster our creativity “through the development of a robust sense of identity”. In How Art Cannot be Taught, James Elkins (21) states that “virtually all our instruction goes into fostering individuality”, but I would argue that while contemporary visual art pedagogy appears to promote individuality, the emphasis on outcome, on product over process, creates an environment antithetical to building artistic individuality.
As an artist/educator for over 25 years, I can confidently say that artists discover their identity through hard work at their practice, through trial and failure, through research, and through perseverance at evolving and expressing their ideas. In my experience within the academic environment, the practical tools at evolving an artist’s creative identity are not weighted equally with the cerebral and skills’ building domains of knowledge. Technique and “text [are] privileged over vision” (Nadaner, 179) while “conceptions of intuitive knowledge are largely elided within postmodernist art school pedagogy” (Fisher, 13). My experience at OCAD U as an undergraduate and graduate student as well as a teaching assistant in studio classes, is that there is overemphasis on finished artwork and that the experimental
Talent demonstrated at the portfolio review does not necessarily indicate skill at thinking or behaving like an artist. Technical practice and skills-building begin with the fundamental basics: colour-mixing, drawing and mold-making are introduced and developed incrementally. Art history, colour theory, critical discourse, and writing are also cerebral spheres of knowledge that are integral to building a balanced artistic practice. These are important pedagogical foundations, but they do not help a student artist figure out how to stand alone in front of a canvas for eight hours and create something from inside their head.
It isn’t the lack of technical know-how or inability to write a good art statement that blocks an artist’s creative output. As Csikszentmihalyi and Getzels (74) found in their thorough analysis of the creative process, “perhaps the most difficult thing for a creative individual to bear is the sense of loss and emptiness experienced when, for some reason or another, he or she cannot work”. Lack of confidence in artistic ability translates directly to lack of confidence in identity. The question of how to teach artistic identity is much more difficult to answer. Perhaps that is why the language and pedagogy to address it at art school are underdeveloped.
YES = 52% NO =18% UNDECIDED =20% ARTWORKERS =10%
PLAN TO BE AN PROFESSIONAL ARTIST?
2 87 intake surveys were gathered. 73 students were in 1st year or General Art classes.
3 I realize that “professional” as used in this question is open to some interpretation. I should have been clearer
about what I define as a ‘professional’. However, I believe that most artists entering art school whether they have a true understanding of the word or not, believe that being a ‘professional artist’ means to make your living as an artist, to have your main source of income derive from your art practice. Even if the definition of ‘professional’ is subjective, the overwhelming results shows that students desire to make their art work
In the intake survey in my workshops2, 52% of students responded that
they plan to become professional3 artists upon graduation. A further
20% indicated that they were undecided. Only 18% responded that they did not intend to become professional artists. 52% is a much higher number than I anticipated. It is unlikely that 52% of these students will actually realize their dream, because “there is perhaps no other course of professional training where the discrepancy between aspirations and achievement is so great” (Csikszentmihalyi & Getzels, 29). I wonder were these same students to be polled again in the final year of their studies if this number would change. In some ways the answers are irrelevant, as educators we have a responsibility to support and encourage that 52%, whether they become “professional” artists or not. If for no other reason than that the “desire to make your art is integral to your sense of who you are” (Bayles & Orland, 12).
Visual art curriculum must begin with the basics, but I assert that those basics must also include practical tools at how to evolve and strengthen one’s artistic identity. If Ryan (105) is right that “process-driven relationships serve to create proximity and intimacy with a creative identity” then placing value on process in visual art pedagogy could be the key to building skills at artistic individuality. This idea leads to the first questions of my thesis: How is the reflexive impulse recognized, valued and taught to visual artists? How can visual art educators enhance and develop artistic intuition? Training artistic
reflexivity in visual artists is the heart of this research and the basis of
1.2 - COGNITIVE CREATIVITY
Your brain is home to an immense repository of
information… this collection of information is unique to you. No one else has this particular mental library. That’s why there is no doubt that you can create novel and original ideas- because nobody else has your unique database.
- Shelley Carson, The Creative Brain, 63.
In recent years, creativity has become a hot topic, a great mystery to unravel. Books about tapping into your inner-creative seem to come out weekly, because as Edward DeBono (11) points out in his seminal book, Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity, “in order to be able to use creativity, one must rid it of this aura of mystique and regard it as a way of using the mind”. Corporations striving to evolve within the creative economy desperately search for competitive innovation and keys to access one’s creativity are at the forefront of cognitive research. Physiologically, all humans are remarkably alike. It is our collection of individual experiences that make each of us unique (Carson, 63). As the educational philosopher John Dewey (3) states in Art as Experience, everyone “experiences life from a different angle than anybody else, and consequently has something distinctive to give others if [s]he can turn his[her] experiences into ideas and pass them on to others”. (sic) Anyone is capable of conceiving big ideas, but not everyone has developed the ability to act on them.
All people - including artists - can train themselves to reflexively respond to their intuitive impulses. Shelly Carson (4) in her book, The
Creative Brain, points to new cognitive science suggesting that the
ability to respond and react to flashes of insight is not a mysterious ability, but a skill that can be improved. “Creative mental functioning involves a set of specific brain activation patterns that can be amplified through conscious effort and a little practice” (4).
Through practice and hard work, some artists learn to respond
reflexively to their ideas and develop them into works of art, but when asked to describe what happens to them in the studio they often have trouble “articulating [their] practice as a meta-dialogue” (Prior, 164). Artists have unique descriptions for how they channel their ideas or get themselves into a reflexive state. In my interview with abstract painter John Kissick (2014) he said that his practice is “way too messy and non linear” and that he makes “messes and riddles”. Abstract painter Erin Loree shared similar thoughts, “it’s a strange thing, I consider that place to be so different from other conscious, analyzing, logical states” (Loree, 2015).
Training the artistic impulse is part of other arts pedagogies. Acting, music, and dance training all begin with technical skill building including practice at improvisational intuitive response, a subject I will cover in more depth in 2.1, How Acting Pedagogy Trains the Reflexive Impulse. While the cognitive research surrounding creativity is outside the scope of this paper, there is a tool that educators can use to train the reflexive response. It is a tool all people use and implicitly understand. A tool available to those who say they are creative and those that don’t. The tool is: Play.
Image 3, Plaster poured into bubble wrap, 2015.
Image 4, Bubble wrap sculptures, plaster, resin, concrete, 2015.
Experiment Two
Bubble Wrap Sculpture
After working with the apple-pear casing, I was drawn to other objects that could be unlikely molds. My next idea was bubble wrap. To create a mold out of it, I needed to delicately cut away the plastic behind each bubble, creating a kind of muffin-tin of plastic. I made a thinner plaster than I had for the apple-pear mold, but still let the plaster dry for a while in my hands.
I tried the process with several sizes of bubble wrap. I created a silicone mold from the largest bubble sculpture. Then I made multiple castings with different plastic resin in a variety of colours.
Bubble wrap is used to protect objects, but these bubble sculptures seem to protect themselves and the air forever trapped within them.
1.3 - DEFINING ARTISTIC REFLEXIVITY
Everything tends to come together if you work at it and you trust your gut. – John Kissick, Personal Interview, 2015.
The great visual art teacher Hans Hoffman (59) said, “artistic intuition is the basis for confidence of the spirit”. A strong sense of confidence in a self-propelled profession may be the determining factor of an art student’s ability to transition into a self-employed artist. I think the concept of intuition gets muddied in the waters of academia. It is a confusing subject even for established artists who think of intuition as something we simply feel, not something we are not supposed to understand or control. The Canadian philosopher, John Raulston Saul (164) in his book, On Equilibrium, devotes a whole chapter to our fear of intuition, how our inability to control it continues to perpetuate our ambiguous relationship with it. He says, “conscious skill or craft is essential in any art. But the result is mediocre without the force of intuitive expression, like a great riptide carrying us out into a world beyond the page or the canvas” (210). How do artists harness this “force” and use it in a directed way? As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (105) identifies in Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention,
“keeping the mind open and flexible is an important aspect of the way creative persons carry on their work”, but how does an artist, while using ‘conscious skills’, keep their mind ‘open and flexible’ in order to respond to their ‘intuitive riptide’?
Many people have tried to describe the way that artists work intuitively. Csikszentmihalyi (112) famously dubbed it, “flow” an
“intense concentration on the present”. Edward DeBono called it, “Po”4,
Maxine Green in her essay, Releasing the Imagination, calls it the “pre-reflexive” 5. The “pre-reflective”, she says, happens before reflection
or hindsight, before the “I” has a chance to criticize. Shelley Carson (18) calls it “streaming”, describing the intuitive state as a kind of brain function called the “stream brainset”, which “is a unique melding of self and action that feels almost religious in its intensity” (Carson 18).
4 “PO is an insight tool since it enables one to use information in a way that encourages escape from the established
Tacit knowledge, lateral or divergent thinking6 are also other names
for this state of thinking, being, and working. (DeBono 1970, Carson 2010, Courtney 1987, Crowther 2009, Brockbank & McGill, 1998) Actors and athletes call it ‘the zone’. Art critic Jan Verwoert (42) uses the word “emergence” to describe the intuitive process of painter Tomma Abts. Sandy Groebner (3) in her MFA thesis paper, The Intimacy of Presence, defined the intuitive impulse as “embodied cognition…something that rests in the sphere of fleeting tangibility” and “within the realm of the experiential and the pre-lingual”.
Reflection is a term that comes close to defining this phenomenon, however reflection implies hindsight, looking back on something that has already happened. The term reflection does not accurately describe what happens while an artist is in the act of making. Spontaneous decision-making happens so quickly for the artist that it can hardly be categorized as a reflection; it is immediate and often improvisational. Brockbank and McGill (72) follow Donald Schon in making a distinction between, “reflection-on-action” and “reflection-in-action”. On-action “convey[s] interaction between action, thinking and being”, while in-action “suggest[s] an immediacy inherent in reflection and action” or “thinking on [one’s] feet” (Brockbank & McGill, 72). While “reflection-in-action” comes close to describing a reactive state, the term still implies looking back while doing.
The action and reaction of creation is an intrinsically reflexive process, part of a lived embodied experience that artists find difficult to describe. It as an intense, focused experience, in which a sense of time disappears and action is effortless. For me, it is not just a space where the “flow” of collected experiences mingle and merge, but a deliberately reflexive process I have trained myself to enter into and remain in.
Reflexivity describes the site of connection between the artistic response in the body and the idea or impulse from the brain.
Reflexivity is the immediate response to stimuli, internal or external; it happens in the moment an idea or impulse meets consciousness. It occurs in that split second in which a decision must be made to react or ignore that impulse. That decision is the reflexive action.
For artists, the reflexive response is artistic because training and personal aesthetic have formed muscle memory and conditioned the reflexive response. Training reflexivity as a tool is not about training
the impulse, but about training the reflexive response to impulse.
In acting pedagogy, the ability to react spontaneously, truthfully, and without reservation is a skill that is practiced repeatedly until it becomes second nature. Visual artists too can learn to react faster and with less fear or resistance, trusting their artistic muscle memory and developing quicker access to their authentic voice.
Engaging artistic reflexivity requires the suspension of critical or evaluative thoughts. Three of the artists I interviewed said that to be in “the zone” they must be in a place free of internal judgment, and that with freedom to play, ideas begin to flow (Loree, Northan, Kissick). Reflexivity is similar to the state we inhabit when we are playing. Artists use ritual, routine or habit to develop pathways to this state of play, but few understand that they can in fact improve their artistic reflexivity with training and practice. Saying yes, as one does spontaneously in play, opens up new pathways of thinking and leads to unconscious decision-making, where “critical evaluation is temporarily suspended in order to develop a generative frame of mind in which flexibility and variety can be used with confidence” (DeBono, 121).
The term artistic reflexivity also acknowledges artistic muscle memory, which develops over time with practice. Responding without “consciously evaluating”, using skills developed and honed with practice, is what Shelley Carson (237) calls “trained impulsivity”. Repetition and practice are tools to transition a conscious deliberate behavior or action into the unconscious. Developing muscle memory enables artistic reflexivity, and to use it requires immense trust and confidence in oneself.
Athletes have a profound understanding of how to use muscle memory with reflexivity. The gymnast on the balance beam will tell you the fastest way to fall off is to focus on the mechanics of walking on the beam. She must trust that her body knows what to do, that she has practiced enough to perform her routine without needing to be conscious of technique.
Just as an athlete works on the mechanics of his or her sport that don’t come naturally in order to improve or excel, you need to broaden the mechanics of your comfort zone to improve your creative thinking skills. This means that you may have to venture into mental territory that feels strange or unfamiliar to your creative brain (Carson, 38).
The same is true of the artist: “paradoxically, the self expands through acts of self-forgetfulness” (Csikszentmihalyi, 113). When an artist is responding reflexively, she is not consciously thinking about colour-mixing or composition, she is immersed in creating, trusting that her technique will instinctively support her improvised decisions. Reflexivity engages muscle memory because learning to step outside your comfort zone into unknown territory requires one’s full focus and being able to rely on practiced behavior enables freedom in spontaneous decision-making. Learning to trust muscle memory is really about learning to trust one’s self. “If you find that you have trouble letting go of planned and consciously controlled behavior, then one of your missions has to be to loosen up and learn to trust the expertise within you” (Carson, 245).
Artists use reflexivity to act on their ideas and respond to their inspiration, but artistic reflexivity is not about training the intuition, it is about training the reflexive response to intuition. “When you are streaming,” Carson says (244), “you lose yourself in the activity and your moment-to-moment responses seem automatic and appropriate… the mental vehicle you use to make this happen…is improvisation”. The value placed on training actors to respond to the reflexive
impulse is paramount. It takes time and practice to learn to say yes, to embrace the possibility of the unknown, and to relinquish control over an outcome. Fear prevents students from saying yes. Fear of being wrong, fear of being judged, fear of the unknown. As the improv artist Rebecca Northan stated in our interview, “if you are always in a place of fear then how can you see what’s going on around you”. Students don’t need to overcome fear; they need to embrace it, and embracing fear is much easier to do when one is not alone.
1.4 - PLAY: IT’S A SERIOUS BUSINESS
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
– Albert Einstein, The Saturday Evening Post ,1929.
Many creativity researchers have identified play as the conduit through which human creativity develops. (Ashton (2015), Brown & Vaughn (2009), Carson, (2010) Csikszentmihalyi (1997), DeBono (1970), Greene (1995), John-Steiner (2000), Panksepp (2004), Pink (2005). Play by Dr. Stuart Brown (60) identifies play as “an absorbing, apparently purposeless activity that provides enjoyment and a suspension of self-consciousness and sense of time”, but for the artist, it can be a tool to help bring imagination into reality.
Play is improvisational; it is a series of instinctual reactions to something or someone. Play is a physiological process in which all animals participate; it “involves multiple centers of perception and cognition across the whole brain” (40). The nature of play teaches behavioral rules and has a profound linkage to our evolution and brain development. “Play seems to be one of the most advanced methods nature has invented to allow a complex brain to create itself” (40). Play is an excellent tool for teaching student artists because playful activities stimulate imaginative connections and “activate functionally diverse brain regions to synergistically integrate their function” (136). Acting pedagogy makes great use of play because play automatically shifts focus away from the self and onto others, which helps students practice responding instinctively to their impulses. Jacques Lecoq (30), the French movement based acting teacher, believed that “true play can only be founded on one’s reaction to another” and that “the interior world” of the artist “is revealed through a process of reaction to the provocations of the world outside”.
Repeated practice at responding reactively is a tool for teaching artists to be reflexive. To engage fully in the present moment an artist must suspend the internal judgment and self-criticizing faculties that undermine reflexive play. Creating a classroom environment of trust
7 The workshops and data garnered from them are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3: The Exercises
and support is imperative when asking artists to take risks and to work outside their comfort zones. It is much easier for a student artist to explore risk when they are surrounded by others doing so. As Sarah Lewis (155) identified in her book, The Rise, “direct teaching is important but learning that comes from play and spontaneous discovery is
critical.”
Play runs very different risks than work, and Shelly Carson agrees that play suspends reality and enacts a kind of ‘what if?’ hypothetical thinking that is “not limited by the constraints of current reality” (110). We take risks when we play, that we might otherwise be too frightened or embarrassed to take outside the safety of play. “The paradoxes of creativity are embodied in play”, we extend ourselves beyond our comfort zones and propel ourselves into imaginary circumstances that have limitless possibilities because “play promotes mixing fantasy and reality” (Brown, 136).
Taking risks is a trainable behavior; artists can learn to accept the accidental and the unexpected as process drivers and through playful repetition open up new ways of thinking. When students engage in play they readily say yes because there is less anticipation or emphasis on the outcome. Accidents or mistakes become part of the improvisational process and teach students to allow their instinctual reflexes to lead their reactions. As the post modern writer Katherine Hayles (210) identifies in her interview with Arjen Mulder, How does it
Feel to be Posthuman? “when a plan is in place, and an event happens
which has not been anticipated, we call that event an “accident” because it does not coincide with our expectations…accidents have the capacity to reveal things undreamed-of and paths unknown.” Inviting the students in my workshops7 to play creatively without
pertaining to any specific assignment made some of them feel like the exercises were “childish” or that they couldn’t “take them seriously”. They may not have understood what skills they were developing or technique they were advancing. Perhaps this reflects how cultural stereotypes have evolved a preconceived notion that in order to be a serious artist making serious art, the art making process must
also be serious...i.e. not fun. The exercises work on deeper levels of metacognition that may not be readily apparent to them at the time of participating.
Our cultural ideas about who is creative and how these creatives are supposed to behave point directly to creativity as “a social identity, not a professional one” (Ryan, 27). These social constructs have contributed to a devolved pedagogy in art school that reinforces the seriousness of visual art making. Certainly, art school should reflect a level of seriousness about the art form, but must that professionalism exclude a sense of play? A sense of fun is important to developing a sustained love for making art. A number of visual art professors at OCAD University expressed to me their ambiguous relationship with the words play and creativity. Those words, they told me, equate the making of art with hobby or craft and are deemed by some as not professional enough for the academic environment.
A large number of students in my workshops reported that the exercises were “stress relievers” and that they had “fun”. Matthijs Baas (139) at the University of Amsterdam, concluded that laughter and positive feeling improved divergent thinking skills and that play “increase[s] activation in the very parts of the brain associated with creative thinking” (Carson, 138). Developing a playful attitude to one’s work boosts self-esteem and motivates an artist to “overcome obstacles and achieve goals” (139). Fun is not antithetical to professional, “the opposite of play is not work, its depression” (Brown, 126). As Sarah Lewis (153) identified in The Rise, “playfulness lets us withstand enormous uncertainty” because “negative emotions such as fear and anxiety can block learning” (Kolb, 208).
The great educator and philosopher Paulo Freire (37) insisted that curiosity leads to innovation: “there could be no creativity without the curiosity”. Developing an insatiable curiosity may be one of the most important components to accessing the imagination. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (185) has spent his career analyzing the creative process and emphasizes in his many books8 the importance of
the yang that need to be combined in order to achieve something new…. both are required for creativity to become actualized.”
Curiosity leads an artist to seek out and learn new things, to combine disparate ideas, and to imagine fascinating problems to solve.
Student artists need to foster and develop regular connection with their imagination in order to develop original ideas. Breaking down cultural myths and acknowledging that playful exploration is not shameful and/or unprofessional will enable student artists unfettered access to the richest source they have as creators: their imagination. Play can be a tool for art educators to strengthen a students’ reflexive ability, and to build classroom environments that acknowledge the joy in creation.
8 Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. Harper Collins, New York, 1997. The Creative
Image 5, Pool noodle molds paint process, 2015
Image 6, Paint Noodle, mis-tint house paint, 2015
Image 7, Paint Knot, mis-tint house paint, 2015
Experiment Three
Pool Noodle Paint
Sculptures
When my daughter’s crib was replaced with a big-girl bed, we wrapped a pool noodle over the edge of the wooden frame in case she fell out and hit her head.
After she got used to the bed, my husband removed the pink noodle. As he cut the noodle into pieces I said, “I wonder what would happen if I poured paint in that?” (image 5) I took them to the studio and began layering paint inside the channel. It took a bit of trial and error to keep the paint from spilling out, and many layers to fill the mold, but eventually they formed fat ropes of paint. After many weeks of pouring and drying and pouring again, I pulled the paint out of the noodle mold. They were bendy paint dreadlocks that held infinite possibilities. In the iteration shown here (image 6) I drooped them over a rusted old screw that I found. This painting removes the visible hand of the brushstroke, the image and the frame and challenges the notion
of what we call a painting.
In Paint Knot, (image 7) I twisted white paint noodles into a ball. The paint lines tangled , knotted and entwined like a forgotten fishing line.
Skills
2.1 - HOW ACTING PEDAGOGY TRAINS ARTISTIC REFLEXIVITY
We begin in silence, for the spoken word often forgets the roots from which it grew.
– Jacques Lecoq, The Moving Body, 29.
Actors use many different methods to create a role. Some acting techniques focus on the internal motivation and/or emotional life. My own training and consequently my teaching philosophy, centers on training an actor’s reflexivity, their reaction to what is happening. My teaching philosophy has grown out of two actor-training methods. The first is that of Sanford Meisner who developed a branch of
‘method acting’9, focused on actors creating truthful behaviors in
imaginary circumstances through repetition. Meisner (16) developed a series of improvisational exercises that enable the actor to focus on their reaction to impulse, rather than on the text. He believed that “the foundation of acting is in the reality of doing”.
The second major influence on my teaching philosophy is a training technique called the Zone of Silence (ZOS). Developed by Canadian acting teacher Perry Schneiderman, based on his work with French movement-based acting master, Jacques Lecoq (2000). ZOS is a series of silent improvisational exercises, placing the actor in simple imaginary situations and requiring them to respond truthfully to their environment. One of the first ZOS exercises is The Doctor’s Office. The actors imagine themselves in a doctor’s waiting room – an situation that they will have found themselves in many times – and then simply wait. While the exercise appears relatively simple, as Lecoq (31) says, “waiting is never abstract” and it is immensely difficult for student actors to resist the urge to manufacture action or behavior to make
9 Method Acting is an acting technique developed in the United States, which focuses on the
psychological complexities of human beings. This technique has been controversial, as branches of it have emphasized a kind of submersion into a role that creates an almost altered state of being and “a subjective, autobiographical approach to performance” (Brunstien qtd. in Krasner 2000).
themselves more interesting. Eventually students come to realize that watching someone live truthfully within imaginary circumstances is the only interesting thing to watch and is the heart of the craft of acting10 (Meisner, 87). The absence of text sharpens the focus on the
actor’s instinctual impulse and the evolution of the scene depends on the actor’s courage and ability to respond to those impulses, “rediscovering those moments when the words do not yet exist” (Lecoq, 18).
Over the course of the first semester the ZOS exercises continue, changing location and complexity of circumstances and increasing intensity of experience until eventually the situation requires words. As Lecoq (18) explains, the essence of such exercises is that “words are born from silence” and speech erupts out of a need. There may be an “absence of words, but never an absence of meaning” (Meisner, 29). The ZOS and the Meisner technique use spontaneous improvisational exercises to train actors to remain in a perpetual reactive state by using their reflexive instincts as the main driver for action. As Meisner (50) explains, an actor’s entire focus is on their scene partner, and on changes to the environment within the given imaginary circumstances, because “you learn to use your instincts based on what someone else does to you”. Nisha Sajnani (79) explains in her essay Improvisation
and Art-Based Research why improv is such a useful tool for training
artists. “Improvisation, with its emphasis on risk, responsiveness and relationship, is at the heart of the artistic process and of art-based research”. In order for student actors to learn how to respond reflexively to their ideas - that is to say, instinctively, without thinking before doing - they must practice with others.
First year acting pedagogy centers on playful, collaborative games and exercises that teach reflexive response and incremental risk-taking. The exercises ignite the play impulse, strengthening one’s confidence to follow impulsive risks, flexing artistic muscle memory, and getting out of the head and into the body.
10 Meisner’s exercises centered on truthful interactions between actors, removing the “head work”(36), the
“intellectuality” and focusing on the instinctive impulse. “Don’t do anything unless something happens to make you do it” (34). He believed that repetition eventually led to a truthful emotional impulse (36) and that all good acting came from the heart, not the head (37).
11 I discuss failing forward in more detail later in this chapter.
12 The conservatory model of acting pedagogy is the norm for professional training programs in Canada.
Placing emphasis on the “other” provides additional lessons: how to collaborate, how to sustain focus, how to fail forward11
(Ketter-ing 82), how to trust and listen (to ones self and others), and how to hear critical feedback without taking it personally. These skills are practiced and developed over time. While some actors have a natu-ral aptitude for taking risks, I know from teaching actors for years that every actor can improve their ability to respond reflexively. Why wouldn’t the same be true for other kinds of artists?
As an art educator, I began to examine how risk taking and reflexivity are taught to visual artists. I interviewed and have worked with many visual art educators who incorporate exercises that engage reflexiv-ity and enable risk-taking in their curriculum. But as students navi-gate their own course curriculum they may not necessarily encoun-ter such educators or their exercises.
While similarities exist in the pedagogies for acting and visual art, an essential difference I have noted is in the amount of collaboration. Acting students constantly work together in a tight conservatory12
group, which keep the same students together for the entire course of their training. Every student gets the same basic fundamentals regardless their skill level entering the training. Visual art students spend the great majority of their time working alone on their own assignments/projects. While some foundational visual art curriculum - observational drawing/painting for example - teach skills in sus-taining focus, hearing and incorporating feedback while developing a work ethic, foundational visual art curriculum does not emphasize risk building, reflexivity, or the value of collaboration.
The conservatory pedagogical structure builds strong, family-like bonds, creating supportive frameworks that enable and encourage reflexivity and risk-taking. Working in collaboration could provide visual art students practice at risk-taking and reflexive skills very difficult to develop in solitude.
2.2 - HOW COLLABORATION BUILDS ARTISTIC REFLEXIVITY
Fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevents you from doing your own work.
– David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear, 23.
When I first had the idea to adapt acting exercises to teach visual art students, I had not realized how much of visual art pedagogy is geared toward independent work. The biggest difference between the training methodologies results because visual artists are creators, while actors are interpreters. Interpreters perform the work of creators. Musicians, dancers or actors work within a framework given to them by a creator - composer choreographer, playwright.
While visual artists don’t work in total isolation, many spend most of their lives working alone and pedagogy has evolved to train them to be independent creators, self-generators and entrepreneurs. For the actor, working collaboratively is always part of the job and in fact integral to creation. While much of an actor’s work is done alone, in preparation for work with others, curriculum focuses on how the actor is to work alone. Visual artists could benefit from this same focus during the early years of their training. As Raqs Media Collective (76) notes in their essay, How to
be an Artist by Night, “the work of art is not just about making art but also
about making the conditions and initiating the networks of solidarity and sociality that enable the making of art.”
Collaborative environments create connections that foster community and build support networks of trust and empathy. These networks provide “emotional scaffolding” (8), eloquently described by Vera John-Steiner in her book, Creative Collaboration. This “scaffolding” (8) she argues, builds confidence and bolsters independence, making artists feel supported and encouraged. Collaboration also creates healthy competition that pushes risk-taking and stretches comfort zones. Students learn through strong peer connections that a sense of community is essential to developing a robust, sustained artistic practice.
Students who participated in my workshops also strongly support the value of collaboration. Out of 87 respondents, 66 said collaboration was helpful to their practice. (Fig. 2)
Working collaboratively on drawing exercises that are not to be marked or assessed allows students to establish connections, internal and external, without the pressure of making art or completing an assignment. When I asked the students about how they felt about working collaboratively with their classmates, they spoke of inclusion and getting to know their peers. In a notable number of responses, they said the workshop was the first time they had had a meaningful exchange with their classmates. Students indicated they wanted more engagement with each other, and to feel part of a supported community inside and outside the classroom. Here are some of the responses to the question: “Do you think collaboration with other artists is helpful to your practice?”
“Everyone brings something new to art. Everyone has solutions to their own problems. You can learn a lot from other people about how to improve yourself, and in return they can learn from you.”
“I hate collabs, but it’s very helpful.”
YES = 80% NO = 8% MAYBE = 12%
IS COLLABORATION HELPFUL TO YOUR PRACTICE?
“To me collaboration offers a path to understanding the same things differently with the help of someone else.”
Students value collaboration and understand its important to their development as artists: “for many students, creativity is less about ‘abandon’ or pure expression and more about community and connection” (Mark A. Pachucki, 39). I also asked how they felt about working collaboratively. Their answers point to how making artwork together moves beyond just making marks, and builds emotional connection.
“I feel less shy and more open to conversation. By seeing the marks they make, I feel like I know them a little better.” “Even though I barely know them this practice made me comfortable with them.”
“In spontaneous thinking you have to listen to what they’re drawing.”
Developing “emotional scaffolding” (John-Steiner, 8) in practice with peers may also enable students to hear and use critique more effectively. With an average of three to five classes per semester, visual art students face approximately eighteen to thirty critiques a year. Artists need to become keen observers, able to learn about themselves through watching the critiques of others. As John Kissick points out, “part of learning the critique is also learning the skills to self-critique”. The ability to self assess, mirror, and translate observed experiences can be difficult for the student artist to learn alone. Learning to incorporate feedback is a skill that needs to be modeled and developed. Anne Brockbank and Ian McGill (97) also talk about building support networks in their excellent guide, Facilitating Reflective Learning in
Higher Education, “enabling students to develop their own critical
stances in a ‘non-threatening’ environment, that sustain them beyond in the future careers will not just happen by exhortation”.
Collaboration can build the “scaffolding” (John-Steiner, 8) needed to create a healthy support system, enabling students to better hear and utilize the critical feedback they receive from faculty and peers. Further, learning to process critical feedback from others is a transferable skill an artist can use when working alone and responding to their own internal critic. This is part of what it means to have a reflexive practice. When I asked abstract painter and educator John Kissick in our interview about what is the best way to help young artists he explained,
the most vulnerable time for an artist is that first two or three years out of school, when your cohort’s gone and you might be making a painting next to a washing machine in the basement somewhere…how do you move forward when you’re not getting any feedback at all?... Get them to understand collaboration and community as essential parts to their development.
Working collaboratively gives student artists practice at responding reflexively, without thinking, exercising the muscles that enable divergent thinking. Thinking divergently allows artists to make innovative leaps by making unusual connections. Working
collaboratively provides numerous opportunities for learning and in building artistic reflexivity that students can use to navigate their own path as innovators.
Image 9, Poured paint from ice-cream lids, 2015
Dollar Hide (image 10), was created by lining the ice-cream lids with dollar store bags – also accumulating in my studio – and allowing text on the bags to transfer into the paint.
Image 8, Ice-cream lids from the puzzle box, 2015
Experiment Four
Puzzle Lid Paint
My family and I enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles, often reclaiming them from second hand stores. One such puzzle contained pieces separated into eight plastic ice-cream tub lids. I thought immediately, “Forget the puzzle, what
if I pour paint into these lids?” (image 8)
Paint lifted very easily out of the lids, making paint a usable material to sculpt with, and I began making multiple paint circles. (image 9) Their uniform shape led me to create several pieces, folding and bending the circles together to build new forms.
2.3 - IT’S NOT ALL IN YOUR HEAD! - CONNECTING VISUAL
ARTISTS TO THEIR BODIES
The training of the body as an instrument of the mind is of the greatest importance for creative man.
- Johannes ltten, 1963, qtd. in Artist Teacher, 112.
Another important distinction between visual art training and acting training is in the importance placed on the body. As the body is the actor’s instrument, acting pedagogy centers on the body, training it, testing it, manipulating it, and most importantly, listening to it. From my observations and research, visual art training, and indeed visual artists themselves, seem detached from their bodies. Little attention is paid to the body, other than occasional references to safety protocols. There seems to be very little curriculum emphasis or value placed on helping students acknowledge and improve this important connection. In order for an artist to be reflexive, they need to be connected, present, and responsive to their body.
The mind/body divide in the training of visual artists is not at all surprising as there is a long standing tradition in academia of privileging the mind, with all it’s rational predictability, over the emotional and unpredictable body. As Brockbank and McGill (45) argue, “the dualist roots of the academy has led to devaluing the body, emotions and feelings, privileging only the mind and the intellect”. There could be profound benefit to visual artists in addressing the artist’s body as part of their training as new “neuroscience research is showing that the fundamentals of perception, cognition, and movement are very closely connected, and that the circuits for higher functions such as planning and recognizing the consequences of future actions require movement” (Brown, 214).
Artists embody and employ their reflexivity in different ways, but the body is always the vehicle through which their reflexivity is enacted. In her MFA thesis, The Intimacy of Presence, Sandy Groebner (24) eloquently stated that,
if we proceed with the premise that we are embodied beings whose cognition relies on an intricately woven network of neural and biological circuits, then it stands to reason that our bodies possess intrinsic intelligence, awareness and ability to perceive in ways not always consciously recognized.
Connecting students to their bodies builds mind-body connections, develops muscle memory, and is a crucial step towards practicing
artistic reflexivity.
For actors, deliberate focus on the body enables them to begin to use and listen to their body as a tool in their practice. This involves learning to listen not just with their ears. Students can learn to listen to their bodies and the world around them. Listening is also important if artists are to learn to hear and process criticism usefully. If artists are too emotional to hear and receive feedback objectively they will be unable to process notes and apply them to their work. As Carson says in the Creative Brain (209), “emotions demand your attention; you will be focused on the emotional material to the exclusion of other thoughts. If the emotion is intense enough, you may feel completely controlled by it.” Learning to re-direct emotion and objectively hear the opinions of others is a skill that develops with time and which needs to be practiced in an environment without pressure or anxiety.
The participants in my workshops were asked if they believed it is important for visual artists to be connected to their bodies. Their answer was an unequivocal yes.13 (77%) (Fig 3)
